


First Notes of the Second Song

by werpiper



Series: in the icing: Layers side stories [7]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, F/M, Fix-its Using All Original Stock Parts, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love after Arda; Love under Aule; Love over all.</p><p>(or I never promised anyone Bagginshield, but WikdSushi inspired me :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Notes of the Second Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WikdSushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WikdSushi/gifts).



> It's not your headcanon, but I hope it appeals? For WikdSushi and any other Bagginshield-brothers whose feelings I've shot down in other contexts....

The Last Battle was over, and the world was dark and made of ash. The Firstborn were like a cluster of stars shining into itself, knowing only peace and joy and rest. The Secondborn voices lifted, each one weak but all clamoring to be heard, and the One Who Made Them All began to teach them to sing to scale. Both light and sound faded slowly, as if into the distance, leaving the remains of the world behind.

Across the oceanic void among them, a small, aged person rowed a boat. His hands shook a little, but he had tied the oars to his wrists, and though he sometimes dropped one his strokes did not falter. When he did stop, he drank a sip from a leather flask and peered hard into the darkness ahead. He thought he glimpsed a little warm glow, like a far-distant fire. He took up the oars again and pulled hard. "An adventure," he muttered, alone though he was. "I promise myself another adventure!"

He rowed for a very long time, pausing now and then to fortify himself from his bottle, or to nap. When he dreamed, half of it was adventure -- piles of gold, sword-fighting, and a dragon -- and the other half of people he had known. Not his own people, dearly though he had loved them. He dreamed of people larger, louder, and more crude (in his opinion). He dreamed of people who spoke in secret languages and held fast to their faiths. He dreamed of a King whose hair was dark and soft, who smiled at him over an acorn in a cave deep underground.

He shook himself awake. "Bilbo, you old fool, you've rested long and long enough," he said aloud, applying himself again to the oars. That was definitely a fire in the distance, and more than one -- red flames like campfires, white blasts like forges, blues and greens flickering like signals. Eventually the boat scraped up on ashy ground, and Bilbo untied the oars, put his flask in his pocket, and stepped out into the water. Little salt waves splashed the fur on his legs, and he strode on towards the light.

The ground underfoot was warm and shifting between his toes. He walked silently enough, but nothing else moved or made any sound in that desolate landscape. So before long he was noticed, and a sharp-eyed, tangle-haired person called out sharply, "Who goes there?"

Bilbo recognized the voice, though it was deeper and rougher than his memory. "Kili!" he called. "It's me! Bilbo Baggins, your burglar!"

"Mister Boggins?" The voice was incredulous. Somehow Kili's boots struck sounds from the ground as he ran towards the shore.

Bilbo, overjoyed, ran to him. He would have cast himself into Kili's arms, except for the estrangement of long years uncounted; this was not the young hunter he remembered as the heir and the dead. The dwarf towered over the old hobbit, reminding him more of King Elessar than anyone else, with his beard and hair long and loose and silver-struck. "What are you doing here?" the familiar voice demanded, and like King Elessar he knelt to look Bilbo in the eye.

"I decided not to stay in Valinor," said Bilbo, trying to sound as casual as if he were saying, _I decided not to take lemon in my tea._ "I came a long way," he added. "I expect you... you and your lot.... your Mahal and everyone, every dwarf that is, are here rebuilding the world?"

Kili laughed. "Something like that, yes," he said. "Not quite every dwarf, and not quite dwarves alone." He sounded deeply pleased, with a hint of his old mischief. Behind him another figure moved, silent and with painfully familiar grace, placing a hand on Kili's shoulder.

"I see you now, Ring-bearer, who used the One to set my captives free." Tauriel's voice was calm, but Bilbo shivered anyway -- if she had seen him then, she might have killed him. His fingers stirred in his pockets, still and always seeking security, finding nothing now but something solid and hard. "I never died, and I never sailed. I loved this world and fought for it, and I love it still." Kili lifted his hand to hers, and she glowed behind him like sunrise in the darkness. "Aule finds my persistence disconcerting," she added, "and will find yours no less, I expect. Let us go to him, and confound him with what relics his new Arda retains."

Bilbo swallowed hard. He had seen Aule in Valinor, and been frightened and avoided him. He had met Yavanna as well, and knelt at her feet overwhelmed, as if he were a garden and she were all seasons happening to him at once. "Really, I came to see... Thorin," he blurted. Kili laughed again, though Tauriel frowned a little. But two hands -- one long, one broad -- took his, and he walked between them. He'd walked to a dragon once, alone.

They walked for a long time, slowing their longer strides to his short, halting ones, waiting when Bilbo needed rest. He fortified himself now and again from his flask, and Tauriel's head lifted sharply, nostrils flared. He held it out, a little reluctantly, but the elf shook her head. "You need it now," she said, not unkindly, "and I only desire." He was glad to tuck it back with all it still contained.

The walk was very long, and Bilbo was old and frail. When he stumbled for the third time, Kili lifted him to his shoulder, and Bilbo could not find the heart to object. He might have drifted off, for his vision was full of green growing things and love, but when he opened his eyes the world was still dark ashes and flame. He was higher now; Tauriel carried him. Their pace was smooth and quick, for all the elf's and the dwarf's strides hardly matched. Bilbo drank from the flask and closed his eyes again.

When he woke, he lay under a thin, shining blanket, and when he pushed his head out he found himself in a forge. Aule was there, forge-hot and mountain-huge, and the room was filled with delicate chiming as he tapped a band of gold around the abdomen of a tiny sculpted bee. His wife sat at his feet, persuading a dandelion to show its gold in return. The green leaves caught Bilbo's eyes first, and he made some small pleased sound without intent. There was a murmur and a rustle at that, and when he could look past the Valar and their work, he found he was surrounded by dwarves. Some were familiar, although even these shone as beautifully as the new-made bee -- Fili's hair like spun gold, Bifur's eyes like chrysoprase. Kili and Tauriel were side-by-side behind him, their arms half-casually set around him. Thorin Oakenshield was nowhere in sight.

Yavanna smiled at him, and Aule scowled. "Bilbo Baggins," he said, and Bilbo cringed at the recognition. "What brings you from your Havens to this wreckage of a world?"

Bilbo thought in riddles at first, but this was no dragon before him, despite the gold and heat and flames. "I got tired of it," he admitted. "There was little work for me there, and what's reward mean then? I missed," he stopped, embarrassed, then plowed on: "I didn't miss books or comfort, after all. I thought of adventure, exhaustion, camaraderie, and trial. I wrote songs about them and the elves laughed with indulgence. I love them but I'm not like them. I was made to be mortal. And I thought of Thorin, though I never could put him into song. But I had a gift for him -- I could never plant it, not in the Shire and not in Valinor, not without him at my side." He drew an acorn from his pocket, a withered old thing. "If he's here I want him to have it, and if my Lord and Lady allow, perhaps it will still take root in this new earth. I could die then, and if I turn into earth myself, I'd count it more than a blessing."

"Thorin," said Aule, "come forth." Bilbo would not have recognized his old friend, his almost-king. Thorin's beard and hair were short and he moved like a Man, long-strided and lightly clad. His hands were empty and he wore no jewels. "What do you say of this, my child?" Aule asked.

Thorin stared at the acorn, then into Bilbo's eyes, which were suddenly full of tears. "The acorn's his own," said Thorin. "I wondered if I'd catch him with the Arkenstone" (Bilbo flinched) "but he showed me that instead. Beorn gave it to him, or perhaps he took it from one of Beorn's oaks. The trees were always generous with themselves," he added, and his eyes flicked to Yavanna. The goddess remained impassive. "I would like to accept Bilbo's gift, and plant it here with thanks, and with your blessing?" His voice rose at the end, uncertain.

"I would like to tend it," said Tauriel suddenly, her voice like music. "I was the daughter of forests; I would be Tauramillë here if I can."

Aule narrowed his eyes, but Yavanna spoke up. "It is a worthy gift," she said. "Accept their offers, and allow them a part in your new world. As you have said, there is always a need for firewood." There was a teasing note in her voice, and Aule's face relaxed.

"It is not mine to accept," he said, and again, "Thorin?"

Thorin smiled into Bilbo's eyes, and Bilbo's heart leapt. "I would take whatever this one brought me," Thorin said, "as I once let him go with whatever he took." Bilbo climbed to his feet (Kili's hand discreetly beneath his elbow) and went to him. Thorin wrapped Bilbo's little hands and the acorn in his own strong grasp. When Bilbo sagged against him, Thorin bent so they were forehead-to-forehead, and the blue of Thorin's eyes filled all of Bilbo's sight. "Mahal," he went on, without moving, "would you reforge him, rather than giving him up for the land? For Valinor is gone, and Middle-Earth is gone. But neither might have lasted as long or gone out as well as they did, were it not for Bilbo Baggins' courage and his cunning, however sore they vexed me. He was innocent and selfish, soft-hearted and romantic. Few of us bring such qualities to our new making, and I missed his for the rest of my life."

There was a pause, and then Aule said "So mote it be!" in his voice of iron, and Yavanna answered "Yes," in her voice of flowers and honey.

"Come now first," said Thorin in a whisper, "and let us find a place to plant your gift, and speak as friends. Then you shall be renewed -- do not fear it; Mahal's hands are kinder and cleverer than my own, and once you trusted my touch. And perhaps we will have years together yet, to grow and craft and cook and sing?" He and Bilbo entwined their arms together, and left the forge in slow steps. The acorn lay clasped between their palms, withered and waiting and warm.

**Author's Note:**

> jrrt's canon is not followed with tremendous precision here, but i draw heavily (as usual!) on "the silmarillion" chapter 2:
> 
> "Since they were to come in the days of the power of Melkor, Aulë made the Dwarves strong to endure. Therefore they are stone-hard, stubborn, fast in friendship and in enmity, and they suffer toil and hunger and hurt of body more hardily than all other speaking peoples; and they live long, far beyond the span of Men, yet not for ever. Aforetime it was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet that is not their own belief. For they say that Aulë the Maker, whom they call Mahal, cares for them, and gathers them to Mandos in halls set apart; and that he declared to their Fathers of old that Ilúvatar will hallow them and give them a place among the Children in the End. Then their part shall be to serve Aulë and to aid him in the remaking of Arda after the Last Battle."
> 
> "Tauramillë" is a play on jrrt's use of Eruamillë to mean "Mother of God" in his translation of the "Hail Mary" -- i mean it like "mother of forest", as "Tauriel" meant "forest daughter".


End file.
